A pilot study with long term follow up of hyperbaric oxygen pretreatment in patients with locally advanced breast cancer undergoing neo-adjuvant chemotherapy.

What Researchers Did

Researchers conducted a randomised controlled trial with 32 patients with locally advanced breast cancer to investigate if hyperbaric oxygen pretreatment improved the effectiveness of neo-adjuvant chemotherapy.

What They Found

Only 11 out of 15 patients in the hyperbaric oxygen group tolerated the full treatment, compared to all 17 control subjects. While hyperbaric oxygen reduced tumour oedema fluid, there was no improvement in tumour cell volume, vascularity, or clinical and pathological responses to chemotherapy. The five-year survival rate was 73% and did not differ between the groups.

Canadian Relevance

This study has no direct Canadian connection as it was not conducted in Canada or by Canadian researchers.

Study Limitations

This was a pilot study with a small sample size of 32 patients, which may limit the generalizability of the findings.